James Preston Delgado (born January 11, 1958) is a maritime archaeologist, historian, maritime preservation expert, author, television host, and explorer. Delgado is a maritime archaeologist who has spent over four decades in underwater exploration. A veteran of over 100 shipwreck investigations around the world, his work has included the wrecks of , USS Independence (CVL-22), ,, , , , Sub Marine Explorer, the buried Gold Rush ships of San Francisco, the atomic bomb test fleet at Bikini Atoll, the slave ship Clotilda, and Khubilai Khan's legendary lost fleet. Delgado's career has included heading a major maritime museum, leading both the National Park Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s maritime heritage programs, giving numerous academic and public presentations, teaching at several universities, and sharing his expertise in hundreds of televisions documentaries as well as answering global media calls on shipwreck-related stories. He also pioneered the standards and guidelines for the U.S. government's National Park Service's National Historic Landmark Studies to preserve maritime shipwrecks and cultural land sites as designated, protected areas. In addition, he is the author of over 200 academic articles, and more than 33 books. He also edited the first encyclopaedia of underwater and maritime archaeology. Named a Fellow of the Explorers Club in 1997, Delgado is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and an Officer in Spain's Order of Civil Merit. Early life Archaeology made a lasting impression on Delgado from age 10, inspired by his teachers’ lessons on ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. When he was fourteen, he became fascinated with a construction site near his home in the Santa Teresa foothills that revealed the remains of the Ohlone people who had lived in the region thousands of years before. The site later became the hacienda and headquarters of an 1835 Mexican landgrant, the Rancho de Santa Teresa, homestead of the pioneer Bernal family. In a time before historic preservation laws were enacted, the site, later designated as CA-SCL-57 (and later renumbered as CA-SCL-125) was being bulldozed and looted while a handful of archaeologists worked on the periphery outside of the construction zone. Delgado, initially as a lone volunteer, worked in the construction zone, mapping, photographing and recovering artifacts and excavating and recovering construction-damaged burials. He continued periodic work at the site through High School and returned to assist in a 1980 excavation of one of the last